Menu

This month I’m starting a new section of ARCTICdeco called My Favorite Things. I figure if I can’t have everything I covet, I may as well write about them and hope that one day they’ll be mine. You’re going to love this month’s line up too!

I’m very excited to introduce you to Pascale Arpin, who is ARCTICdeco’s first guest blogger! Pascale is a brilliantly talented artist, teacher, and all round lovely lady who came to Iqaluit in 2011 from her home city of Ottawa. She came to Iqaluit out of curiosity and has made this community her long-term (we hope) home. She’s done some incredible work on her first home and major fixer-upper, including this incredible bathroom reno – which puts my little renovations to shame, might I add. She too has begun documenting her reno journey on her blog Cold World Reno, so be sure to bookmark it for exciting future updates.

I’ve just realized that I’ve left you all in limbo on some of the first projects we did in the house and never got around to posting the afters of the powder room renovation – or kitchen for that matter.

The kitchen is only a few more weeks away from being finished, so I’m going to prolong the suspense further. Yes I’ve been too lazy to finish painting that one last cupboard door, but can you blame me? I only just got back the use of both my arms.

As for the powder room, there are also a few details I’ve yet to complete, but am in no rush to do them, so I’ll share with you what we’ve improved so far…

So I realize it’s been a while since I last posted. It seems that tennis elbow isn’t as innocuous an injury as I first thought. It’s actually been extremely, profoundly, annoyingly, and inexplicably painful as well as inconvenient. Unfortunately having a daytime desk job hasn’t increased my recovery rate, if anything it’s been quite the opposite. Although I am now (as a result) an accomplished ambidexter, I’m still fairly incapable of writing a full email without requiring an ice-pack and several pain killers. Hence my delay in posting.

Nonetheless, after taking over 2 months off reno-detail, and with J having amazingly taken over as lead renovator (as well as bag-carrier, dinner-maker, floor-cleaner, and teeth-brusher) in the house, I’m gaining strength and mobility and may even be able to paint the kitchen walls this weekend. Ya, you heard me, those puppies are ready for paint! Now, I’m not about to give it all away today, but wait until you see the drywalling that’s been going on here!). I’ll be following up with the final reno pics of the kitchen in the coming weeks, but for now, you need to get caught up on all the other action, namely the upstairs bath.

It’s been a very busy week. We’ve managed to nearly finish the powder room downstairs, but have yet to install the final light fixture – hence I’m holding out on posting any of the after shots. Nonetheless, we’ve made great headway on the kitchen and the upstairs bathroom renovations – which are also missing a few last fixtures before the final shots are posted. I’ll follow up with a post on the kitchen progress soon.

So I mentioned in a previous post that I may have gone a little crazy on the powder room renovation over the weekend. Basically I wanted to get rid of all the very, very old hardware and cabinets, and rather than waiting to get the proper tools from the garage, I pretty well ripped everything out that wasn’t welded in place, aside from toilet and sink. It felt good, but I then realized how much more work I may have made for myself in the process.

After deliberating over your many comments, I decided to consider some alternative options. I also happened to stumble across this new-fangled AMAZING program online that’s like Pinterest with photo montages (yay!) called POLYVORE. Although, according to Lauren (one of the most media-savvy fashionistas I know), I’m not ACTUALLY the first to discover it and am seemingly behind in the times for not having already known (*sigh), but I’m still going to take full credit and if you have already heard about it, just pretend you didn’t.

So here are some Polyvore layouts I’ve constructed for the powder room. The first consists of most of this past week’s ideas. The second are my newer ideas that are more white and icy and I’m kinda falling in love with it and moving away from the darks. I’ve also given them very romanticized indulgent titles, after being inspired by the very cheesy paint chip names I’ve been sorting through this afternoon.

As we’re painting and caulking and sanding the greenhouse – which by the way is *nearly* there…though it seems the final details take FOREVER, but it’s gunna be great when it’s done – my thoughts keep moving to the powder room downstairs. Largely because it’s got a horrible floor right now and it’s such a tiny room, I feel like there’s so many fun things I could do with the space sooner than later.

After several days of pondering, Pinterst-ing, and blog-hopping, I think I’ve found a combination of elements that will work really well, and hopefully won’t put us over budget. It’s going to be a while before any of this actually happens though, considering we live nowhere near an IKEA, Home Depot, or major appliance stores, and so far the only thing I’ve purchased for the room is this super cute chandelier/pendant….

I love wallpaper. Who doesn’t, really? I love the impact a single covered wall can have on a room, and the shot of colour you can inject into a tiny space with it. Having never actually attempted to install wallpaper myself, I’m hesitant to give it a go, but I’m thinking of biting the bullet and trying it out in our small powder room downstairs. It’s a tiny space that would lend well to some playful, bright wall decor.